An enemy position comes into focus under a clear blue Afghan sky. British accents are heard as one soldier asks another the whereabouts of the Royal Air Force. Suddenly, aircraft engines roar, the briefest glimpse of a bomb appears and the scene explodes. It is just one sequence in a burgeoning library of footage that British forces have shot overseas. An enemy weapon or lump of shrapnel once would do for a battlefield souvenir. Now, growing numbers are using helmet-mounted cameras to bring back personal video from the front line. The results, often uncensored, are entering the public domain in increasing quantities, often via so-called "self-broadcast" Web sites such as YouTube. Although use of the helmet-mounted cameras has given the public unprecedented access to the world of warfare, senior officers are concerned about the trend... http://www.washingtontimes.com

Wal-Mart Stores' (WMT) shares dipped 2% Monday as Wall Street tried to determine what caused surprisingly weak November sales and looked ahead nervously to a make-or-break December.The world's biggest retailer, which estimated Saturday that November sales fell 0.1% at its U.S. stores open at least a year, gave little detail into sales trends and said nothing about Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving that marks the traditional start to the holiday shopping season.The worries came on a day that Wal-Mart announced it is rolling out its $4 generic drug program to all its pharmacies.Starting Tuesday, all 3,810 pharmacies, in 49 states, will offer the program. ...http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/retail/2006-11-27-wal-mart_x.htm?csp=34

The world's richest nations are dumping hazardous electronic waste on poor African countries, says the head of the UN's Environment Programme (Unep). Speaking in Nairobi, Achim Steiner said consumerism was driving a "growing mountain of e-waste". Unep estimates that up to 50 million tonnes of waste from discarded electronic goods is generated annually. Improper disposal of e-waste can release hazardous chemicals and heavy metals into the environment. Mr Steiner made his comments at the opening of a week-long conference in Nairobi which will review the Basel Convention, aimed at reducing the movement of all types of hazardous waste. "The need for Basel is ever more evident in this globalised world," he said. "Accelerating trade in goods and materials across borders and across continents is one of the defining features of the early 21st Century." ...http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6187358.stm

South Korea plans to kill cats and dogs to try to prevent the spread of bird flu after an outbreak of the deadly H5N1 virus at a chicken farm last week, officials said Monday. Animal health experts, however, suggested it was "a bit of an extreme measure" when there was no scientific evidence to suggest that cats or dogs could pass the virus to humans. Quarantine officials have already killed 125,000 chickens within a 1,650-foot radius of the outbreak site in Iksan, about 155 miles south of Seoul, the Agriculture Ministry said. Officials began slaughtering poultry on Sunday, a day after they confirmed that the outbreak was caused by the H5N1 strain. They plan to slaughter a total of 236,000 poultry, as well as other animals, including pigs, and all dogs and cats in the area by Thursday, the ministry said. About 6 million eggs also will be destroyed, it said. The ministry did not say how many dogs, cats and other animals would be killed....http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2006-11-27-bird-flu_x.htm?csp=34

A tool has been created capable of circumventing government censorship of the web, according to researchers. The free program has been constructed to let citizens of countries with restricted web access retrieve and display web pages from anywhere. The University of Toronto's Citizen Lab software, called psiphon, will be released on 1 December. Net censorship is a growing issue, and several countries have come under fire for blocking online access. Human rights organisation Reporters Without Borders recently released a list of 13 countries it believed were suppressing freedom of expression on the net, including Syria, China and Vietnam. But the Citizen Lab, which is based at the Munk Centre for International Studies at the University of Toronto, believes its program will allow surfers to bypass web censorship. Psiphon works through social networks. A net user in an uncensored country can download the program to their computer, which transforms it into an access point...http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6187486.stm

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani arrived in Tehran on Monday to meet with his Iranian counterpart amid increasing calls for Washington to enlist Iran's help in calming the escalating violence in neighboring Iraq. "Talabani arrived in Tehran minutes ago as the head of a high-level delegation," Iran's state-run television reported. Iran has been trying to organize a summit joining President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Talabani and Syrian President Bashar Assad in a bid to assert its role as the top regional powerbroker. Talabani had planned to come to Tehran on Saturday but had to postpone his trip until Baghdad's airport, which was closed in a security clampdown, reopened Monday. Iranian officials have confirmed that an invitation was extended to Assad, but Syria has not responded. ...http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=2681540